Category: Opinion
Easter attacks 2019 vs. COVID-19 outbreak 2020: What lies ahead for SL
Nisha Arunatilake On Easter Sunday last year, Sri Lanka was shocked by a series of bomb attacks. The security concerns that followed kept people home and curtailed economic activities. Less than a year later, the country is again under curfew for a different reason. A new disease, COVID-19, which first emerged in the city of […]
Covid- 19 &’s: 5 important areas to focus on during tough times
Dr. Nirmal De Silva It is evident that the Covid-19 pandemic would create a significant economic impact globally. Whilst it is rather premature to predict the overall impact, one can safely conclude that the impact will last for a number of months (best case scenario) post Covid-19. In Sri Lanka too we can expect our […]
COVID-19: Have global banks ascertained key industrial impacts, prior to offer solutions
By Gayan Gunewardana: The 2019 novel- Coronavirus (covid-19) outbreak, which originated in China has infected nearly 700,000 people globally till date. The impact has left businesses around the globe counting costs and more likely A global-recession would be a definite norm as per IMF’s projections. It’s a challenging task to gage the potential economic or […]
Opinion: Shut-downs need not be curfews
By Aneetha Warusavitarana On the 12th of March the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the new coronavirus, COVID-19 to be a pandemic. With cases in Sri Lanka reaching over a 100, the government of Sri Lanka has taken several measures to prevent the spread of this disease. One such measure was enforcing an island-wide curfew. […]
BBK Partnership, Jaffna’s accountants to the World
I first heard of the BBK Partnership Sri Lanka in 2015. I first spoke with its co-founder Anandan Arnold in 2018, and finally met him in March 2020 at a hospital in Manipay Jaffna. He was dressed rather informally for a Partner of London’s BBK Partnership of Chartered Accountants. Anandan (pictured below on the right) […]
Uki offers an alternate route from the Northern Province into the tech industry
By Jekhan Aruliah Does Sri Lanka need more university graduates? Sri Lanka has tens of thousands of unemployed graduates. Every now and then the government brings thousands more of them into the Public Service, further bloating an already bloated service. In December 2019 a government minister promised jobs for all 64,000 (his figures) unemployed graduates! […]
Opinion: Girls in STEM, How is Sri Lanka faring?
Ashani Abayasekara Written for International Day of Women and Girls in Science on 11 February 2020 Sri Lanka is well recognised as a leader in gender-equal education in the developing world; World Bank statistics show that primary and secondary school enrollments and completion rates are similar for girls and boys, while girls have higher enrollment […]
Opinion: Measuring poverty within Sri Lanka’s new reality as upper-middle-income country
Wimal Nanayakkara Sri Lanka achieved ‘Upper Middle Income Country’ (UMIC) status in July 2019, as the country’s Gross National Income (GNI) increased from USD 3,840 per capita in 2018 to USD 4,060 per capita in 2019. World Bank’s (WB) new threshold for UMICs is USD 3,996 – USD 12,375 GNI per capita. Sri Lanka scraped […]
Opinion: Post-independence reflections, the gaps in our freedoms
By Erandi de Silva Seventy two years ago, Sri Lanka gained independence from the shackles of British rule. This meant the autonomy to govern our people, the freedom to create and maintain our institutions and the ability to carve our own political narrative. Beyond political liberty, independence also restored our control over land, resources, and […]
Sri Lankan Airlines corruption scandal reveals need for deeper structural reform in SoEs : Advocata
Weak governance has led to large scale corruption in state enterprises. Sri Lankan airlines has made Rs. 169 billion in losses since nationalisation in 2009. It has recently been revealed that Airbus SE paid the wife of a Sri Lankan Airlines Executive US$ 2 million, out of a US$ 16 million bribe over a large […]
Opinion: Hayleys Fentons MD bullish on construction, renewables despite challenges
As an industry which relies on large scale investments to fund long-term projects, the construction sector is by nature, a business that relies on confidence, precision, and quality. One of the sector’s leading the charge on these fronts is Hayleys Fentons. Since its establishment in 1921 and acquisition, followed by the recent rebranding under the […]
Opinion: Act carefully or drown: 3 lessons from New Orleans for Sri Lanka
By Asmita Tiwari, Suranga Kahandawa, Masatsugu Takamatsu & Keiko Sakoda Our hearts sank as we looked at the Hurricane Katrina-affected house, now the Flooded House Museum in the City of New Orleans, United States. Our team from the World Bank was accompanying Sri Lankan officers visiting New Orleans in October 2019, to learn from the […]